


This tumbling storm

by Reikah



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Alternate Universe - World of Warcraft Fusion, M/M, Polyamory Negotiations, Sibling Incest, Threesome - M/M/M, everything's better with DRAGONS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-24
Updated: 2011-11-24
Packaged: 2020-03-01 05:54:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18794311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reikah/pseuds/Reikah
Summary: Yuui's living a peaceful, if lonely, life in Stormwind, but not everything is as it seems.He was enjoying dinner when Kurogane more or less broke the lock on his door barging in, and the man's low, angry cursing made him choke on his food in laughter. Some things never changed.





	This tumbling storm

**Author's Note:**

> This is a cross-over with World of Warcraft, set during the last days of the _Wrath of the Lich King_ expansion.

It was an earthquake that awoke him. Not a big one - the crystal wind chimes hanging by the window jingled faintly and no more - but that was sufficient, and Yuui sat up in his bed and _focused_. Stormwind City wasn't built on any earthquake hotspots that he knew of, and his magic never had been one of the earth and nature, but it didn't _feel_ like a magical attack.

Strange, he mused, rubbing at the back of his neck with one hand. Perhaps there had been an accident at the eastern Earthshrine. Many of the new shaman training there were given to wildly inappropriate use of magic, after all. Either way, it didn't _feel_ like something he should be concerned about, at least not just yet, and he had other things to be getting on with. He needed to open up the shop below his flat in time to catch the first rush of morning customers, for a start.

The pre-dawn light was too weak for him to go about his morning routine in peace, but here in his bedchamber he could use his magic in safety, and so he lit the lanterns on his walls with a wave of his hand. Today's outfit was laid out neatly on his dresser surface where he had left it, the neatly pressed black pants and long white tunic with the armband around the left sleeve, and he leaned over the edge of the bed, casting a curious look around for the accessory that would help him get over to it.

The stick was lying crosswise along the foot of his bed. His prosthetic was propped up next to it, and Yuui flipped his bedcovers aside and used his core muscles to sit up. The stump of his left leg fit neatly into the prosthetic's cup, and he cinched the leather straps as tightly as he could around the remainder of his limb to bind it in place. It was an old-fashioned false leg, this, and he knew that the artisans in the Dwarven district were working on combining Draenei technology with newer combustion engines to create more sensitive and functional false limbs... but he'd seen Gnomish engineering first hand, and had no particular wish for his leg to explode or otherwise violently backfire on him while he was trying to use it.

At least they weren't goblins, he mused. Everyone knew about goblins and their somewhat haphazard approach to safety protocols, which was frequently combined with their natural inclination towards explosives. His twin had worked with a team of goblin sappers once. Six units of three sappers each, and there had been no survivors, which was in itself fairly remarkable considering all they'd wanted the goblins to do was build a siege engine.

By the time he finished lacing up his boots the sun had come up, and he winced at the sunbeams lazily slanting across the floorboards. He'd been slower than usual, and he'd have to work harder to get the bakery open in time to catch the apprentice magicians on their way to classes. Luckily he had a batch of pre-made dough cooling in the pantry... He'd get his assistant to light the ovens and do the pre-opening chores while he made his first batches of pastries, he decided, and reaching for his stick he climbed awkwardly to his feet. 

Sakura was waiting for him outside when he unlocked the door, as he knew she would be. She smiled brightly at him when she saw him, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

"Good morning, Sakura," he said, mildly, and she bobbed him a quick curtsey that made him smile. She was too polite sometimes, this girl.

"Good morning, Yuui," she replied, undoing her long traveler’s cloak and picking up the basket of wood, crossing over to the big baker's oven. "Did you feel the earthquake this morning?" 

Yuui nodded. "It woke me up," he said. "Do you know what caused it?"

"Yes! I heard some of the adventurers in the trade district talking about it," she said, her eyes sparkling. "You know the Kirin Tor, the mage circle?"

"I've been running a bakery in Stormwind's mage district for twenty years, Sakura," Yuui reminded her gently. "I know the Kirin Tor."

"Oh, of course." She flushed slightly, and Yuui smiled at her soothingly as he scattered flour over his work surface. "Well, according to these adventurers, the earthquake was them moving Dalaran."

Yuui paused with his hand half-in the sack of flour, sure he had misheard. "They moved _Dalaran_? A whole city? Wasn't that destroyed?"

Sakura nodded enthusiastically as she shrugged on her apron. "They're moving it up north - as in, to _Northrend_. The adventurer who seemed to know what was going on said they'd been rebuilding it behind a bubble for years. Isn't that strange? Dalaran used to be close to Lordaeron, didn't it? Before the plague?"

"Yes, it did," Yuui said absently, his mind not really on the fate of either the old Dalaran or that of the dead kingdom of Lordaeron. Northrend. Why would the Kirin Tor move their city there? Because of the Lich King and his undead army? Or...?

"I suppose we'll find out more from our customers," Sakura said wistfully, and Yuui glanced down at the workbench, the dough sitting next to it and his tools spread out across it. Of course, if anybody knew what the Kirin Tor were planning, Stormwind's mages would, and they would be here soon looking to purchase breakfasts. 

He set Sakura to making spiced bread while he prepared a batch of pastries, and though they had to hurry, they managed to get a good six trays into the ovens in time for them to be fully cooked. Normally Yuui loved his job, loved the hustle of humans around him and liked the practically of baking, the scent of fresh bread and the feel of dough under his fingers, but today he found he couldn't concentrate. Not with those tidings.

There were more things in the icy continent of Northrend than the undead scourge, and he wondered uneasily what it was the Kirin Tor were after.

* * *

The apprentices who came into his bakery to buy their breakfasts didn't know any more than the adventurer Sakura had overheard, it turned out. They were fearful for some reason, and Yuui overheard a few of them murmuring about the blue dragon flight of all things, but Yuui's attempts to find out what, if anything, the blues had done to prompt such a reaction were met with blank silence. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised. They were wizards, and no matter how much they liked his pastries, to them he was just a crippled war veteran and baker. Those who knew who he truly was and what he had done to earn his battle scars were few and far between, and he liked it that way.

He had a visit from one such person at the tail end of the week, just when he was about to close down shop for the night. The whispers of the blue dragons' involvement had been scaling up, and in truth he had expected such a visit long before now, so when he heard the door chime as he was filling the washing tub with dishes he didn't order his visitor away, just lowered the bucket he'd been using to fill said tub and limped back into the main room.

"Mr. Flowright," said the woman standing just inside the door, quietly. She wore silk magician's robes, cut in a style he supposed was fashionable now and made of high-quality fabrics. But then again, she was the ruler of Theramore and had the money to go with it. She held her wizard's staff firmly in one pale hand, and her head was tipped back proudly, her blonde hair tumbling loosely around her face.

"Lady Proudmoore," he replied, and gave her a smile. It was a pale imitation of his brother's, but he meant it, which he supposed made all the difference. "Would you be so kind as to get the sign?"

She turned behind her and flipped the sign on the glass of the door from _open_ to _closed_ , and Yuui's stick clacked across the floor in time with the _click click click_ of his prosthetic as he made his way to one of the tables against the wall. She moved with him, drawing the chair back for him, and he thanked her as he sat down.

"I suppose you've heard," she said, sinking into a seat opposite him, and he shook his head. Her eyebrows rose slightly as if in disbelief, but she didn't comment on it, instead stripping off her kidskin gloves with delicate, firm gestures. When she had removed them, she leaned back in her chair, her blue eyes bright and intense on his, and said, "Malygos has awoken."

The news made him twitch, even though he had been expecting it from the first overheard conversation between two apprentice mages about the blue dragons. The blue dragon flight was innately bound with this world's magic, and as its leader Malygos was more powerful than any other. Mortals called him the Spellweaver. Yuui had always thought of him as his father.

"And this is not good news," he said quietly, making it a statement rather than a question because she wouldn't be here like this if it was. Not the ruler of Theramore herself. "Did the King send you?"

She shook her head. "I remember your name from the war," she said. "Stormwind's King knows of you, though." She hesitated. "The Spellweaver has decided that mortal magicians are responsible for the recent attempted invasion of our world by the demons of the Burning Legion, Mr. Flowright, and the blue dragon flight has been abducting mages from all over. Reports at this stage indicate they are being tortured into servitude."

Yuui said nothing, but icy grief settled into his chest. That Malygos would do such a thing, that his kind could fall like this... he wondered what Fai was doing. If Fai was participating in this. They hadn't spoken for three months now...

Jaina tilted her head, her blonde hair tumbling in artful waves around her face, and said, "Given the proximity of your bakery to Stormwind's mage district, I cannot help but wonder..." She let the sentence trail off, but Yuui understood.

"No," he said, keeping his voice low but infused with steel. "I am not acting against you or any other mortal race, my lady. If you know who I am then you should know that I turned my back on my kind after that ancient war."

"I will notify King Wrynn," she said quietly. "You will be known to SI: 7, Mr. Flowright."

Yuui narrowed his eyes. By that she meant _you will be under surveillance_ , and he wasn't thrilled, but he didn't particularly see a reason to object. His flight didn't even know he still survived, much less where he had gotten to, with the exception of Fai; and the only other visitor he had came and went as he pleased, and he very much doubted a few human spies could stop Kurogane from doing whatever he wished. 

"Your flight have crossed the Kirin Tor, Yuui," Jaina said, "But it isn't them you should worry about. The other flights have responded too. It could mean a war."

Like that was a surprise, Yuui thought. Alexstrasza of the red may be the Dragon Queen, but everyone knew her consort Korialstrasz was a member of the Kirin Tor as a human mage known as Krasus. He said nothing, however, merely looked away, because torture and abduction was something else entirely, and it hurt to think of Malygos sanctioning those actions.

"The Nexus is heavily guarded," he said, speaking of the home of his flight up in the frozen fields of Northrend. "I will remain neutral in this war. If you seek to use me as a spy, then I cannot offer you any assistance. Dragons do not look kindly upon cripples."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Jaina replied, and he knew she meant it. Leadership had hardened her, but it couldn't change her, and she had been famed for her empathy and understanding. He inclined his head, acknowledging her, and she rose, the chair legs scraping over the stone floor. "Remember this conversation, Mr. Flowright," she added. "Your identity will be kept a secret from the wider Stormwind populace. You are not the first dragon to hide amongst its people, but I trust your intentions will be more honorable than the last."

He snorted at this. "Onyxia was a black dragon," he said. "They are different creatures entirely, and no friends of ours either."

"Even so," Jaina said, at the door, and he nodded at her as she left.

That night Stormwind Intelligence set three separate watchers outside his bakery, a night elf and two humans. Yuui could sense them as he got ready for bed, and he pondered closing the shutters before deciding against it. Let them see him for how he truly was, he thought, as he sat on the edge of his bed and fastidiously unfastened his prosthetic; let them see him as no different from any other veteran living in Stormwind, missing bits and eking out a living as best they could.

That night he was woken by another earthquake, and for a long time afterward he had difficulty getting back to sleep. Something felt wrong, and he didn't know what it was.

* * *

He was enjoying dinner when Kurogane more or less broke the lock on his door barging in, and the man's low, angry cursing made him choke on his food in laughter. Some things never changed.

"I hope you can pay for that," he said, without turning around. "I'm not buying another one out of my money just because you can't work out knocking."

"Yeah, yeah," Kurogane growled, kicking the splintered door shut after him and hitting it with the heel of his hand until it wedged itself in the door frame, which buckled. Yuui eyed it uncertainly, and the man took a step back to examine his handiwork before growling and stalking across the shop floor to Yuui's table. He drew himself up to his full height, folding his heavily muscled arms across his chest, and glared down at Yuui, who ignored him and carried on eating his meal. It was a good one, too. Sakura had fetched it in from the Blue Recluse inn before he let her go for the day.

"Is there something you wanted?" Yuui asked after he'd consumed half the dish and Kurogane hadn't moved, and glanced up to see a muscle twitching in the man's jaw.

"Yeah," said Kurogane, folding his arms. "I'm supposed to ask you if there are any other neutral blues. Alex wants to know."

"You have to be the only person who calls the Dragon Queen 'Alex,' Kurostrasz," Yuui remarked blandly, and watched the way Kurogane's mouth tightened at his true name. "No? How about 'Youou'? Is that not what that night elf priestess named you?"

"What Tomoyo calls me is none of your business," Kurogane growled. "I'm in human shape, therefore I'm Kurogane to you."

"Of course," said Yuui, lowering his fork. "I apologize. What did Alexstrasza send you for, again?"

"A list of neutral blues," Kurogane repeated through gritted teeth. "The war is ramping up. One of ours killed the blue bastard's consort."

"Saragosa?" That was a surprise. Saragosa had replaced their mother following her demise, and neither he nor Fai had ever taken to her.

Kurogane rolled his eyes. "Of course her," he said, impatiently. "How many other consorts does he have? Aside from the old one the Lich King raised as a frost wyrm, I mean."

The fork dropped from Yuui's suddenly unresponsive hands to bounce off the wooden floorboards, and Kurogane's expression changed slightly as he realized he'd said something he shouldn't.

"The Lich King raised Malygos' former consort as undead?" Yuui breathed, and touched his chest with his fingertips, feeling rather as if he'd been stabbed in the heart. The very _wrongness_ of that fact gripped him. Malygos had gotten Saragosa and Haleh to replace their mother, their _mother_ , and Haleh was still alive, which meant... "Does Fai know?"

"No. I haven't seen that squirrelly bastard for decades," Kurogane said, pulling a face. "You know where he is?"

Yuui shook his head, and Kurogane scowled. "I haven't seen him for a while myself," he said, still sounding somewhat dazed. As well he might. Sindragosa, a frost wyrm? It was the ultimate perversion of the peace a dragon should receive after death, their souls tortured and forced into their former bodies, now rotting and burning with dark magic, and it was the worst fate he could think of for any dragon, worse because it was his _mother_.

The Lich King was truly a heartless monster. Yuui tightened his fingers on the edge of the table and sucked in a deep breath, and reminded himself that they had been talking about Fai. "My... my twin is in hiding," he said, eventually. "What did you... what did you need him for?"

Kurogane paused before answering, which was unusual tact coming from the bloodthirsty red dragon. Reluctantly he pulled out the chair opposite Yuui and sat in it; it creaked ominously under his weight, but held. "Alex is sending a mixed army into Malygos' lair," he said, reluctantly. "Some of us reds and some of the best mortal heroes Azeroth has to offer. It's... she wants to know about potential succession to the role of Aspect after Malygos dies. She doesn't want to eradicate you blues, y'know."

"I know," Yuui said quietly, letting go of his knife. Delicious as the meal had been, he couldn't stomach it and the thought of his father, dead at the hands of Kurogane's flight. "And not Fai, either, although plenty will volunteer him. Maybe some of the younger dragons. Azuregos is still wandering around the wilds of Azshara over in Kalimdor, I believe, and there's the young blue who distinguished himself in the fight over the Sunwell..."

"I know the one," Kurogane said.

"Arygos too, maybe, though I wouldn't count on him. Tarecgosa perhaps, although I haven't heard from her since the war." Yuui paused, and sighed. "There aren't many of us left, Kurogane," he said. "The great war saw to that." And it had, with fire and blood and the unbelievable power unleashed upon them by one they had trusted; a betrayal so deep and so severe that even now, ten thousand years later, their flight had never recovered. And neither had he, he thought, his hand wandering unconsciously to the stump of his leg. Kurogane scowled, evidently noticing the gesture.

"You're not any less of a dragon because you're missing bits," he said impatiently, and Yuui chuckled sadly.

"I think my kind would disagree with you there," he said. "Except for Fai, once they realized the extent of my injury... well."

They hadn't been rude, at least. They had been distant. Blue dragons were creatures of magic and curiosity with lively scholarly minds, but they were still dragons. When they had realized how badly Yuui had been wounded they had been courteous and respectful, but in their eyes he could see that it would have been better if he had died. Perhaps they would have finished him off themselves, one quick bite to the back of the neck, if not for Malygos and for Fai. He had chosen self-exile, spent his time with mortals instead, because they were strange creatures and prone to accidents and damage and after warfare they were no stranger to those without limbs.

Kurogane sighed and unfolded his long limbs, and then smacked him lightly upside the head. "Both of you are idiots," he said grumpily, and Yuui smiled as he pressed a hand against the site the red dragon had not-so-gently struck him. "If I wanted to listen to endless whining I'd go hang around with the night elves. You're alive, right? That counts for something."

"Yes," Yuui said, mulling it over. He was alive, and he had... a lair, of sorts, even if it was just a flat over the shop. He had access to the Stormwind Royal Library, thanks to the head librarian's patronage at his bakery. He had a few humans he felt protective over, and when they were in his bakery his territorial instinct slumbered. He had Fai, whose love for him he had never doubted even when Fai was on the move and could not visit him regularly.

And he had Kurogane, old friend and casual bed partner and apparently the person who knocked the occasional sense into him. He smiled. "Yes, you're quite right, it could be worse."

Kurogane peered at him through narrow eyes, distrustful as always of that smile, and then grunted. Sometimes one could forget that, young as he was, Kurogane's life had not been a kind one, either. There was a reason the Dragon Queen kept him away from the Horde when she could. Yuui bent down and retrieved his discarded fork, stacking it neatly next to the knife on the plate, and began to rise awkwardly out of his chair, groping for his stick; Kurogane watched him and made no move to help, and he was grateful for that. He did this all the time without Kurogane there. For Kurogane to offer assistance now would be an insult.

"Thank you for bringing me news of the Nexus War," he said, quietly. "When you go back to your queen, will you tell her where I am?"

He had only met Alexstrasza of the red once, many many thousands of years ago now, shortly after that first great war when Neltharion of the black had betrayed them all so badly. She had offered to treat his wound, but she was so weak it was a miracle she could stand. Yuui had declined, but that was what he remembered; the dull lack of luster to her scales, her head resting on the grass with her eyes half-lidded, and her offer to expend some of the pitiful amount of strength she had remaining on a dragon of a different colour entirely. The Lifebinder, they called her, one who abhorred death in every form. This war with Yuui's own flight must be hard on her.

Kurogane snorted and shook his head. "She won't ask," he said. "She knows. It's your brother whose location we want to know."

"I told you, he's -"

"- in hiding, yeah, I got that." Kurogane tipped his head back to peer up at the ceiling and let out a long huff of breath. A wisp of smoke escaped from his lips, curling lazily in the air. Yuui picked up his plate in his free hand, and limped over to the tub so he could wash it up for the night. He was about halfway across the room when Kurogane said, in an entirely different tone of voice, "Hey, blue."

"Hrm?" Yuui asked, turning around and almost fumbling the plate. Kurogane was leaning with an arm on the back of his chair, his gaze intent. Predatory, maybe. 

"I'm not due back until tomorrow," the red dragon said, and Yuui felt heat low in his belly. Was Kurogane offering...? "Do you want to?" Kurogane jerked his head at the stairs leading up to Yuui's living quarters, and he expelled his breath shakily. It was hard to miss _that_ gesture.

Sindragosa had been their mother, but Yuui and Fai had grown up knowing their father had multiple consorts. It had been drilled into them, as the most powerful blue dragons in the flight after Malygos himself, that they would eventually be expected to take a consort or two themselves; their kind had been decimated and repopulation was, they had been told, a group effort. After Neltharion's betrayal and Yuui's subsequent mutilation, Yuui could never have attracted a mate if he tried, and Fai had avoided them on principle.

Then along came Kurogane.

It had been an accident, at first. Kurogane was most definitely not a female blue dragon of breeding age. He was also loud, dangerous, and willful; he had been sent on a mission with Fai by their respective Aspects and Yuui never knew quite what happened on that mission other than Kurogane had emerged with a long scar on one paw and with Fai as a more-or-less unofficial mate. It happened, of course, sexuality and gender could be... fluid among their kind, but nobody had ever expected it of Kurostrasz and Faygos. 

And then Kurogane had been introduced to Yuui, Fai's most treasured secret, and nobody would quite have anticipated that Kurogane would end up mating with _him_ too, but he had. And Yuui was grateful for it, because he was lonely and refused to take mortal lovers and having Kurogane there helped. He visited more frequently than Fai did, because he wasn't hiding from his own flight, and he was... good. Careful. Considerate, almost, which was not a word most would apply to Kurogane.

All in all there were very few downsides, and so Yuui smiled softly, warmly, and said, "Of course."

* * *

Spring in Stormwind was muggy and humid, to his eternal displeasure. The water vapor got in through the cracks in his windows, and the rain did endless damage to the wooden exterior of his building. The rumors and whispers from the Northrend expedition had been growing; a group of heroes were said to have infiltrated the undead fortress of Naxxramus and slain the Lich who ruled it, and as a consequence King Wrynn was set to be launching a massive assault on the Wrathgate, the defensive wall keeping the Lich King locked up in his citadel. The people of Stormwind were worried, and rightly so. Day by day the able-bodied men and women in the city seemed to be lessening as the lines outside the military recruitment offices lengthened. The King had put his personal friend Lord Bolvar Fordragon in command, and some were saying he was working well with the horde faces also stationed there. Others were saying it was only a matter of time before betrayal struck.

Yuui himself expected a military draft before the summer came, and with that in mind had had Sakura picked up by the Stormwind mages. It was a short-term measure, and he missed her terribly, but as an apprentice mage she would be studying for a good ten years before she was sent to the front lines, and it was the only way he could think of to keep her safe. Through her the mages found her good friend Syaoran Li, so at least she had company in class. The pair of them stopped off at the bakery every day, although Yuui forbade her from rolling up her sleeves and joining in. He'd put a piece of paper in the window advertising her job, but so far nobody had come to pick it up.

The Nexus War was escalating, like Kurogane had predicted. The Kirin Tor had indeed moved Dalaran to float in the skies of Northrend, and they required constant manning of their perimeter to keep them safe from blue dragon attack. Alexstrasza had marshaled her flight and moved to Wyrmrest Temple, the heart and home of all dragonkind, in an attempt to stop the blues from destroying the world on Malygos' orders. It broke Yuui's heart, but what could he do? He was a cripple and a recluse, and he had no more say in what the blue dragons did than anyone who was not a dragon.

It rained heavily the evening he heard the news. Yuui was working late; without Sakura to help him set up shop in the mornings it was better to work late making arrangements than not open in time, and truth be told it was kind of restful, standing at the counter crafting delicate pastries to leave overnight safeguarded by a mild chilling spell, the rain pounding on the roof. Well, Stormwind wasn't too far from the great jungles of Stranglethorn, he mused. Surely some spring rain was better than the howling blizzards they got further north.

When the knock came at the door he wasn't expecting it and jumped violently, managing to upend a whole tray of almost-finished croissants. Crossly he called out, "A moment!" and stooped to begin picking them up from the floor, biting back a grunt of pain as he did so. He'd spent too much time standing on his prosthetic lately, and it was beginning to irritate his skin. Strange, how human solutions could lead to human problems.

He took longer than the promised minute to cross the shop floor, his cane clicker-clacking his displeasure as he limped toward the door scowling. It was late - almost midnight, in fact - and whoever was calling should know better. It wasn't Kurogane, if only because his damn door was still intact, and it wasn't someone from SI: 7, because Stormwind Intelligence had pulled all their spies after making them sit around for months with him doing nothing more exciting than his job, so when he opened the door his first words were, "This had better be bloody important -" before he realized who was there.

Fai was wearing a traveler’s cloak, but he had the hood down and he was soaked. Water sleeted his hair to his skull and ran down his face in rivulets, and in a voice that held barely more heat than the rain, he said, "Malygos is dead."

"Come in," said Yuui, standing aside, and his twin brushed past him without another word. He shut the door and bolted it, and put up the sign in the window he only used rarely, and normally for public holidays: _Closed for the day_. Fai hadn't moved much past the entrance and was standing there, leaving a sad puddle on the floor; Yuui had to peel his cloak off him while his twin passively helped him do so.

"What happened?" he asked, and Fai drew in a deep, shuddering breath.

"It was several hours ago now," he said, in a dull, disinterested voice. "Alexstrasza's champions made it into Malygos' lair. They found an item in Naxxramus that allowed them to punch straight through the magical defenses; Malygos had forgotten he had given it to Sapphiron before he died, I think. Alexstrasza's brood assisted them. It was a bloody battle, but..." He broke off and raised his hands to his face. "Malygos is dead," he said again, muffled against his palms. 

Yuui guided him over to a chair and helped him sit down. Fai moved like a dreamer, and Yuui could empathize. His own chest ached with loss. _Malygos, my lord,_ he thought, and his heart throbbed with his grief, _What did you become?_

"I wanted to tell you," said Fai softly. "They want me to be the next Aspect, and I... I can't, Yuui, I can't -"

"Sssh," Yuui said, capturing his hands. "No. I know. It's safe."

Truth be told he couldn't blame his kin for wanting Fai to fill that position. After Malygos, whose power had been the stuff of awe and wonder, who had been said to have created magic itself and woven the very spells that set the world into movement, the pair of them had been among the most magically gifted of the blues. The two of them; two whelps from the same egg, born tangled together and thrumming with _energy_ , and with him a cripple naturally their flight would turn to Fai to succeed their father. Fai was talented and clever and old, and he had their respect if not quite all their hearts.

The problem was that Fai would make for a terrible Aspect. He was strong but flighty, and his first instinct was always to run away rather than fight; he was protective of those he loved but not to the extent an Aspect had to be. He was not prepared, Yuui thought, and smoothed his hands over his twin's hair. It was identical to his, of course. They had always assumed matching forms, ever since they had hatched together.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, quietly. "The flight is in disarray."

"Alexstrasza has ceased hostilities," Fai said. "Or offered to, at least, but there are still some who fight on in Dragonblight. I... I can't stay here, Yuui, not for long. I have to disappear, otherwise they'll find you and then they'll find me."

"I understand," said Yuui, although his heart ached to put his arms around Fai and cling to him, now and forever. He bit his lip and said, somewhat plaintively, "Can't you stay the night, first?"

Fai glanced up, wearing an expression Yuui knew by now had to be the same as his own: conflicted, torn. "I... I shouldn't," he said hesitantly, "But... Yuui, I..."

"You don't have to," Yuui reassured him, although his heart sank. It had been so long, and he wanted...

Fai glanced over at the door, the long fall of his hair rasping over his shoulders at the movement, and then lowered his gaze temporarily. "I shouldn't," he said again, "But I think I will. Had you heard about mother?"

Yuui nodded quietly and Fai let another shaky, lost breath. "He is desecrating our kin's burial sites," he said. "Mother was not the first of us he raised. We need to stop fighting with the reds and turn on him, pick up the bronzes and the greens too, but... we won't."

"Have you heard of this coming assault on the Wrathgate?" Yuui asked, and now it was Fai's turn to shake his head. He told Fai of the two armies camped there, at the foot of the citadel; of the incoming push into the Lich King's domain. Fai listened with his chin on his hand, his blue eyes narrowed. "... people here are afraid, Fai, and." Yuui hesitated. "There have been more earthquakes than usual."

"Earthquakes?" Now Fai lifted his pale eyebrows in surprise. "Earth magic has never been your domain. What do the alliance’s shamans say? They do have some working with them, do they not?"

Yuui nodded. "The draenei brought several with them and installed them here when they joined the alliance, but so far they haven't said anything in public. Perhaps they have told the King what they know. I'm worried, Fai. Everything feels... tense, like something bad is going to happen."

"Have you told anyone this?" Fai asked, and Yuui shook his head. "Not even Kuro-grumpy?"

"I haven't seen him for three weeks," Yuui said. He didn't need to ask how Fai knew Kurogane had been in this house; Kurogane had a spicy aroma that lingered after him for some time, and despite their separation Kurogane was more or less his brother's primary consort. Or perhaps it was the other way around. "The earthquakes have been going on longer than that and I - it's only lately that I've begun to be really concerned."

Fai made a small, thoughtful noise and looked away, and Yuui reached out across the table and took his twin's hand in his. They were orphans now, he supposed, and that hurt, but Malygos had been gone in spirit if not in presence for millennia. He wasn't sure whether or not he qualified as a real dragon any more, but he felt Fai's grief, and he wanted his twin to know that he was there. From the tight way Fai squeezed his hand in return, it was appreciated.

Their mating that night was strange and different, so unlike usual. Both of them found they needed to touch more than usual, Yuui skating his palms over Fai's skin and kissing more than he normally did, as if stockpiling to prepare for a long winter. This was always one aspect of mortals' lives dragons were willing to concede was better than their own; dragon mating was not pleasurable, done out of biological need and nothing in return. The humanoid races however were so sensitive, it was always... yes. Yuui tipped his head back and let Fai suckle a bruising kiss into the column of his throat. 

Yes, he thought, mortals had _this_ over his kind, any day of the week.

* * *

He dreamed of that terrible war again that night. 

They had been flying in close formation when Neltharion turned on them, and the initial blast had been a severe one. Their mother had been knocked far, far away, never to be seen again. The rest of them had tumbled and rolled through the air, concussive shockwaves battering them seemingly from all directions. He had righted himself, and he had been the first of their flight to see what remained of Neltharion once the smoke cleared; the glossy black hide covered in rents and tears, the fiery glow within. Magma seeped through the wounds like blood, and the black dragon Aspect's eyes had seethed red with hate, his colossal jaws parting and the magic boiling up in the air... 

Yuui remembered the terror he had felt at that moment so vividly he woke himself up gasping. Fai was still asleep, buried face-first in the mattress with his blond hair loose and wild over the pillow, and quietly Yuui rolled over and curled against his twin's side.

He would take comfort where he chose to find it. There was no shame in that.

* * *

When he woke up the next morning Fai was gone. He hadn't left a note, for it would have been too easy to trace; instead he had left a smooth river-stone with a hole in it atop his pillow, and Yuui picked it up and wrapped his fingers around it. Human superstition held these kinds of stones to be good luck, they both knew that, and quietly he pushed the covers aside and reached for his stick, using it to limp across the room. He put the stone in a box on the mantelpiece with all the others Fai had given him over the years, and then he went back to bed.

He stayed there all day, shivering quietly and caught in the aftermath of his dreams, his leg twinging with remembered agony from the heat of Neltharion's power. It had been thousands of years and he normally tried not to think of the cruel black dragon, but Neltharion - Deathwing, he supposed, as he had been renamed following his betrayal - could still visit him in his nightmares and frequently did.

The pain never went away. When he closed his eyes he saw ash, and his brothers and sisters dying around him.

* * *

Yuui had just finished handing a customer their change - how he hated the adventurer types who paid for six-copper items with gold coins - when the horn of a royal crier blared outside, and the conversation in his shop stilled and died. That horn was almost always bad news. A man sitting near the door got up and opened it, poking his head outside curiously, and the horn sounded again; exchanging glances his customers rose and began filing outside. Carefully locking the change drawer and grabbing his cane, Yuui tapped his way after them, his heart full of dread.

The King's messenger was a boy of perhaps fourteen, sitting atop a skinny piebald horse and resplendent in his uniform, bearing House Wrynn's crest on the breast pocket. He reined his horse rather inexpertly to a stop once he saw them filing outside and tucked his horn self-importantly under one arm. All around the courtyard windows were opening, men and woman leaning outside to hear the King's latest decree, and the boy's chest puffed up.

"Message from the King," he announced, in a booming voice that seemed incongruous from one so young. "Following the Horde's deception and betrayal at the Wrathgate, which has resulted in the loss of the paladin Lord Bolvar Fordragon and many hundreds of Alliance warriors under his command, and due in part to Warchief Thrall's refusal to make amends, King Varian Wrynn hereby rescinds any and all treaties of peace between the Alliance and the Horde!"

Yuui lifted his eyebrows. He didn't care much about the mortal races and their struggles, but even he could see making war on each other would be of no use while the Lich King lived still. His undead army did not care which faction it encountered; it would destroy the living regardless.

"Furthermore," continued the messenger, "King Wrynn hereby announces compulsory military service for any and all of Stormwind's single men and woman, who are sound of body and mind, between the ages of seventeen and forty years old! Draft notices shall be issued forth from the Royal tax register within the week, and those eligible are recommended to report for training as soon as possible! Failure to report within two weeks of receiving your draft notice is a criminal offence, punishable by imprisonment within the Stockades!"

He stood up in his stirrups, pointing dramatically at the imposing bulk of the Stockades prison, rising hugely out above the rooftops of the houses and businesses in the mage district. Yuui quietly rested both hands atop his cane, grateful that he had sent Sakura and her friend to the wizards. 

Most of his customers scattered once the messenger had passed on, looking fretful. He couldn't blame them. Even those not eligible for the draft had loved ones who were, and most of the citizens of Stormwind remembered what it had been like to take on the orcs. This time there would be few other kingdoms to aid them; Lordaeron and Stromgarde had long since fallen into ruin, their people dead and gone. Gilneas cowered behind their walls, refusing to offer assistance, and the high elves lived only as refugees, scattered throughout alliance lands as the blood elves trampled their legacy into the dirt. Kul Tiras might aid them, or it might not. They still had the dwarves and the gnomes, Yuui supposed, as well as new allies in the night elves and the draenei, but the horde had plenty of allies too.

It didn't matter. It was not his business what they did, Yuui thought. He had lived through too many wars already, and he was tired.

That evening he paid a young adventurer a couple of silver pieces to courier a letter to Moon Priestess Silvershadow in the night elf capital city of Darnassus, with a separate letter enclosed for her to forward to Kurogane. Tomoyo always knew how to find the stubborn red dragon, and she was one of the few mortals who knew of Yuui's identity, too. 

He doubted anything could be done about the schism between the humans and the orcs. It extended too deep for two dragons and a night elf to cure, and really, he just wanted to write to Kurogane. The nightmares of Neltharion were increasing in frequency, and he didn't know why.

* * *

_Fire and ash and his wing, flesh searing off as he fell from the sky -_

He snapped his eyes open and for a moment he didn't know where he was. It took him longer than it ought to recognize the wooden beams of his ceiling, smoke-stained from where he hadn't hired anyone to clean it recently, and for a few heartbeats he just sucked in deep breaths.

"Still having nightmares, huh," Kurogane said from across the room, and he froze.

"Kurogane," he said, as his heartbeat thudded back to normal, and sat up. "When did you get here?"

The man was sitting on the window seat, one booted leg drawn up beside him. He was carrying a sword, a long heavy-looking blade of shining silver that was clearly magical in origin. Its hilt was a snarling dragonhead, caught mid-leap. "Late," he said, and hesitated. "I've been busy. Sorry, kid."

Yuui fumbled the covers off and sat up, throwing his leg over the side of the bed and resting his foot solidly against the carpet. It was cold, but he didn't care, and he bent over, rubbing a hand over his chest and wincing at the sweat-slickness he encountered there. His stump stuck out of his sleeping shorts, ugly and useless and scabbed, and he tried surreptitiously to fold an edge of the blanket over it. "Did you break my door again?"

Kurogane shook his head. "I climbed in through this window, you left it unlocked," he said. "You're fucking lucky you haven't been robbed in this city so far. I swear, both of you are idiots."

"I'm sorry," Yuui said quietly. It was all he could think of. His flesh still tingled with the memory of the look in Neltharion's eyes...

"Don't apologize, idiot," Kurogane said severely, and after a pause said, "I've been mixing with the mortal adventurers."

Yuui blinked at him. This seemed to come very far from midfield. "What?"

"Alex sent me to find out more about them, the group that killed Malygos, so I've been pretending to be a mortal and mixing with them," Kurogane said, uncomfortably. "Tomoyo got me your letter. I was with them making an assault on Icecrown. Tch! The creatures in there..."

He looked away, and Yuui could see the tension in his shoulders. He could imagine. Kurogane was still a red dragon, a creature of life, and although he usually represented the flip side of that coin - death, the ending that paved the way to rebirth - the undead would always repulse him and his flight. Their very existence was wrong. "I saw Fai," he offered softly, and Kurogane sighed and stood up. 

"Good," he said. "I was going to give him a thumping next time I saw him if he didn't. His martyr complex is incredible."

Yuui grinned at this, and Kurogane leaned out and pulled the shutters closed, flipping the catch. "I'm glad to see you," he said, and he meant it. Fai was Faygos, but Kurostrasz was Kurogane. 

"Yeah, well," Kurogane said, folding his arms over his chest. "The hell is up with those nightmares? You were thrashing like you were being tortured."

Yuui sighed, scrubbing at his hair. "I keep dreaming of Neltharion," he said, in a low voice, and Kurogane snarled abruptly, his teeth bared.

" _Deathwing_ ," he said, using the more traditional name for the fallen black Aspect, and there was a kind of burning hate in his voice which wasn't surprising. The Dragonmaw orcs would never have been able to do the terrible things they had to the red dragons if Neltharion hadn't sold them Alexstrasza.

"Yeah," said Yuui. "Him. I hadn't thought about him for centuries, but lately I -" he sighed. "I'm sorry," he said. He hadn't wanted to bring up bad memories for Kurogane too. "There's something strange about the weather lately, and it's... it's not good, Kurogane. I don't have the kind of magic necessary to detect what, but... can you sense anything?"

Kurogane shook his head. "I can ask the mortals," he said. "There's a few shaman amidst their group."

"Thank you," Yuui murmured, and Kurogane grunted something that mostly likely meant _whatever_ but could really have been almost anything. His boots were heavy on the floorboards as he paced from one side of the room to the other, and Yuui signed, straightening, and pushed away the last shivers of his night terror. "Kurogane, come here," he said. "When do you have to meet up with the mortal heroes to venture back into the Lich King's lair?"

"Not until tomorrow evening," Kurogane said, coming to stand by the bed, and Yuui drew in a deep breath and surged forward, setting his hands on the man's hips.

"Keep me company," he whispered, and it was begging in all but name, and Kurogane sighed and bent down to kiss him.

Fai was Kurogane's mate, and Kurogane was Fai's, but Yuui... Yuui felt that he belonged to both of them, even if they did not belong to him. It was a fair price.

* * *

The Lich King fell by the end of autumn. Yuui had heard that the Kirin Tor had built a statue in the middle of Dalaran to commemorate the heroes who slew him, and wondered if Kurogane's human visage was recorded on it. The thought made him smile, like few else could these days.

It had been five months since the loss of Malygos, and the blues had not appointed a new Aspect. Nobody had come to him looking for Fai, but nonetheless there were days when he thought he felt... watched, like someone was spying on him, but he never could sense anything with neither his magic nor his tricks. He kept his business afloat and played the part of normal mortal, even as his customers dwindled. The horde had launched an assault on the night elven lands, and Stormwind had shipped supplies and reinforcements to support them. New expansions were being made, steps into horde-dominated territories. Forsaken apothecaries had been discovered hiding in a tower near the human settlement of Darkshire, and were dragged back to Stormwind to be executed in the Cathedral square; Yuui was told a former member of the fanatical Scarlet Crusade was put in charge of interrogating them.

And the earthquakes kept coming. Enough that the ordinary citizens began to notice them, and the draenei shaman who had been stationed in the city were beginning to be overwhelmed by people asking what was going on.

Worse, cultists began springing up, all prophesying the end of days. This wasn't in itself unusual - there were always those who believed the end was nigh - but in this case the sheer _number_ of half-baked madmen wandering the streets was remarkable, and Stormwind's constabulary began to take action against them. Mysterious devices began appearing across the city, too, and that wasn't unrelated. Yuui caught one of the would-be doomsayers trying to plant one in his bakery and broke it by crushing it with a rolling pin before chasing the man out with a dwarven shotgun; diligently he scraped together the shards and spent his evening examining them, trying to make sense of the contraption. When it proved beyond him he carefully boxed it up and hired an apprentice mage to send it to Tomoyo.

He saw Kurogane once more before all hell broke loose; the man and his adventuring friends had discovered a serious breach in the Ruby sanctum, the sacred burial chamber of the red dragon flight located underneath Wyrmrest, the very same temple Alexstrasza had made the site of her stand against the blue dragon flight. They weren't entirely sure who was behind it, but Kurogane privately confided, in the security of Yuui's bed, that it was probably the black dragon flight.

"I still say we should get rid of every last one of them," he said. "They've had their chance, there's nothing left about them that we can work with. Alex sent Rhea to experiment with their eggs, but it's going to take time for her experiments to get anything done."

"Why would the black dragon flight move against you?" Yuui asked quietly, skating his palm over the skin of Kurogane's forearm. "Mortals killed Deathwing's children Onyxia and Nefarion years ago, and I'd heard Kalecgos and some others destroyed Sinestra in the old ruins of Grim Batol. With those three dead, how much danger could the black dragons be?"

Kurogane's face tightened at the mention of Grim Batol, the dwarven stronghold he and his kin had been imprisoned in by the orcs, but eventually he sighed and rolled over, propping himself up on one elbow to glare down at Yuui. "They don't need a reason," he said, curtly. "They don't need those three as figureheads. Deathwing isn't dead, blue. You know that. All Alex and the other three heads could do was chase him off, and as long as he still exists somewhere that's all those fucking black dragons need to cause havoc. They're crazy."

Yuui ran his foot along the outside of Kurogane's thigh, enjoying the soft flesh under his toes, and nodded. He couldn't say he'd weep if Deathwing's flight were destroyed. He wriggled forward, pressing his nose against Kurogane's strong, perfect shoulder by way of comfort, and the red dragon made an irritable noise but raised a hand to pet his hair absently.

"I saw Fai," Kurogane said, and Yuui froze.

"When?" he asked, and hated how desperate he sounded. Five months since he'd seen his twin, and he missed him more than he knew. He'd taken to keeping the box of lucky stones on his night stand, and sometimes he awoke from his nightmares to find he held one clutched tight in a fist.

Kurogane shrugged, jostling Yuui, and said, "About three weeks ago. He misses you. He said Arygos has eyes on you."

So that explained the prickling sensation. Yuui sighed deeply, curling into Kurogane's side, and said, "If you see him next, tell him I miss him too."

"I'm not your _messenger,_ " Kurogane grumbled, but Yuui knew he would do it, and when Kurogane left, he felt a little better for both the company and the contact, however indirectly, he had had with Fai.

* * *

He was in his bakery after hours when the earth bucked and heaved, so violently he was flung off his feet. Without thinking he threw up a wall of ice, and in good time, because the ceiling beams were splintering as the floor kept quaking and pitching and the roof finally cracked and fell only to be deflected harmlessly from the ice shield over his head. Furniture and masonry rained down around him, his belongings scattering themselves as his home fell apart, and as the walls toppled he looked up into a sky that was the red of fire and of blood.

"Spellweaver, no," Yuui mouthed, horrified. 

Distantly he could hear piercing screams, the cracking of further buildings falling. The shaking earth still hadn't settled, but he tried to climb to his feet three times, only to be knocked down each time by another vicious tremor. The mage tower down the street from him was waving side to side like a palm tree, the stone spiral walkway ringing it that had weathered years of apprentice mages and their boisterous antics collapsing and crumpling away as the earthquake ripped the city to shreds.

It took him a few seconds to notice after the first shocks stopped, and then the sound of collapsing buildings in the background faded. There was a strange magic seeping over the city, pouring over the crevices between the smoking ruins of buildings, and he raised his head and sniffed.

Elemental magic.

Something was really badly wrong here.

"Yuui-san! Yuui-san!" Sakura was haring down the road toward him, Syaoran hot on her heels; they were streaked with dust and dirt but seemed otherwise uninjured. "Oh, thank the _Light_!" She skidded to her knees in a motion that was guaranteed to sting later and threw her arms around his shoulders, and he embraced her back.

"You're both okay?" he asked, checking, and Syaoran nodded.

"Master Mallin sent us out to help before the aftershocks hit," he said, grimly. "We're setting up evacuation portals, sending people to safety. There's bad magic here."

"We came to find you," Sakura said anxiously. "Now you're here we can -"

"I'm staying," said Yuui, groping for his cane.

"Yuui-san, it's very dangerous," Syaoran said, raising his head. Storm clouds were rolling in over the harbor, and they didn't feel natural. He dropped into a wary position, raising his wizard's staff. "Sakura, careful! The mist -"

Mist was rising up from the ground, and Yuui set a hand on Sakura's shoulder and forced her behind him as it coalesced into a vaguely humanoid shape. A water elemental, set and bound here for one reason only, by a hostile force. "Yuui-san!" Sakura said, grimly, "You have to flee! It's dangerous here!"

"And you two are just apprentices," Yuui said. "First years at that. No."

The water elemental turned toward them ponderously, although how Yuui could sense its direction always confused him. It wasn't like it had eyes. Formed of swirling water, it towered above the three of them, and reeked of power.

Yuui brought his hands together and sucked in a slow breath, and then unleashed a roiling wave of arcane energy from the palm of his hand; the missiles slammed into the elemental and sloughed chunks out of its 'body,' sending sprays of water flying against the wall behind it. It reeled, and he finished it off with a directed cone of ice that froze its very core, shattering and littering the area with solid chunks of elemental. There would be others though, of that he was confident. "Sakura!" he ordered. "Set up that evacuation portal. Syaoran, we have to find civilian survivors."

"Yuui, you're... a mage?" Sakura said, staring at the shards of elemental, and Yuui nodded and flashed her a quick smile.

"Have been for some time," he said, "But now really isn't the time. Portal please, Sakura, there are people trapped under the masonry."

"Oh!" Her lips moved as she began the incantation, and the portal grew between her palms; she anchored it neatly between the ruins of Yuui's walls, using a physical locus to hold it as smart mages were trained to do. Syaoran gripped her wrist firmly.

"We'll be back soon," he said, his eyes on her face. "Keep it open."

"I'll wait for you," she whispered, and Yuui caught a glimpse of the way they were looking at each and turned away to grant them some privacy.

"Come on," he said, and Syaoran fell into step behind him without looking back.

It was exhausting work. Storm elementals had arrived too, following on the heels of the thunder clouds, and it felt like for every one Yuui killed there were two more, and they all put up one hell of a fight. Syaoran darted into the remains of buildings while he took on the monsters, shouting at the survivors to run for freedom if they could and helping them carry out others who couldn't; they were in miserable shape, and many were bleeding or dazed. 

"I was making lunch," one woman said, blood sheeting down her face from a head wound while she grabbed at Syaoran's hand. "I was making lunch and then the wall came in..."

"You're going to be fine," Syaoran said, his eyes blazing seriously. "I'll take you to the bakery, there'll be a portal waiting there to get you to safety. Healers will be on the other side, okay?"

"Light bless you," she said, and Yuui covered their retreat back to the portal with flashing magic that burned and froze. The elementals seemed more intent on property damage than civilians, and Yuui supposed whoever had set them upon Stormwind wished it destroyed for good. The horde, perhaps? He doubted it, for while the horde venerated shamanism this kind of destruction was not their style. They favored open combat above sneaky assaults, or at least, the orcs did. And he couldn't see Warchief Thrall abusing his gift in this manner.

Once he was satisfied they'd saved all they could they grabbed Sakura and moved onto the next district, which happened to be the park, and from there to the Cathedral district where the Archbishop himself was leading the rescue efforts, and this time Syaoran held the evacuation portal open while Sakura hunted the trapped citizens. The elementals died easily, but then again Yuui was no ordinary dragon; and the damage they were doing to the city's infrastructure could not be underestimated. Yuui's bad feeling hadn't gone away, however, and in fact it was just getting worse; the aftershocks kicked in while he was fending several of the slave elementals under the shadow of the cathedral.

By the time the last elemental had been driven from the city Yuui's chest was heaving with the effort of breathing. He hadn't used magic like that for decades, and he was drenched from head to toe from holding them off. Syaoran was squatting on the ground next to him, his brown bangs plastered to his face; he thumbed them miserably out of the way as he heaved in air. Sakura was leaning against him, looking similarly weak, and Yuui dropped a hand to their heads in gratitude as he tried to recover. The sky was still blood red, but the attacks had slowed.

"I have never been this tired," Syaoran mumbled, and Sakura made a small noise of agreement. Yuui glanced down at his adopted humans and grinned wearily. 

"You did well," he said, and turned at the crunch of approaching boots; Jaina was making her way toward him, climbing awkwardly over the wreckage. "You look exhausted," he said, and she pulled a rueful face.

"That was some impressive magic, Mr. Flowright," she said, and he grimaced. He'd seen her at work, across the canals that separated the districts. "King Wrynn wants to speak with you and the Archbishop in the trade district."

Yuui raised his head, sniffing at the air. There was still something... wrong... like the world was about to change... his stomach was still tight with tension, and he decided to go with it. "Sakura, Syaoran, get yourselves out of the city," he said. "See if you can find a senior mage and have him open a portal to somewhere not... here. I recommend Dalaran."

Jaina paused. "You don't think this is over?"

"I think this was just the prelude," Yuui offered, and she nodded. With a weary groan the kids helped each other stand up, and after a minor whispered discussion they opened one last portal and went through it; Yuui watched until the last light of their portal winked out, and then followed Jaina as fast as his leg would take him. The archbishop declined, insisting he was needed in the cathedral to treat the wounded, and neither of them argued with him; Yuui had lost his stick and without it walking was an effort. Jaina noticed, and without comment she passed him her staff. He took it gratefully.

"It's strange," Jaina said, after a pause, "To see a dragon so thoroughly outcast from his society due to a missing leg. Forgive me if I am being insensitive, but is it not possible to travel on three?"

"We have six limbs," he reminded her as they clumped over the bridge leading to the trade district. A night elven adventurer sitting astride a huge saber cat came barreling past them, but neither he nor the Lady Proudmoore flinched. "I am missing my leg in this shape because it's the closest human analogy to my wing in my true form."

She nodded, and looked up at the sky. "That colour troubles me," she said. "The elemental invasion, the resurgence of this 'twilight cult,' even the black dragons have been more active of late. And that earthquake..."

"It wasn't natural," he said, and she hummed agreement.

"The shaman of the Earthen Ring sent a delegation here," she said, and paused. "They are very worried by something. Did you know Thrall resigned his post?"

"The horde's Warchief?" Yuui asked, surprised, and she nodded tersely.

"He decided to be a shaman before a leader. I received the news this morning, and I was here to notify the King when the earthquake happened. If... whatever this is, if Thrall felt the danger was so great it required his personal intervention that cannot be good."

A rainbow-colored swirl of arcane energy formed in the air before her, and puzzled she reached out and pinched it between her thumb and forefinger, closing her eyes as it sank into her skin. Yuui said nothing, recognizing a magical message when it was being delivered, and a few seconds later her eyes flew open and she gasped.

"That was one of my subordinates in Theramore," she said. "Something dreadful has happened to the Barrens - the land itself has fissured, I must speak to the King..."

Yuui nodded and pushed himself faster. They were almost there, at any rate. Some of the bridges spanning the canals had collapsed, but the one between the Cathedral district and the trade district was still intact, and when they rounded the corner he found himself wincing at the extent of the damage. Shops he had frequented lay in splinters, their owners missing; half the roof of the bank had collapsed, and the auction house was little more than smoldering splinters. A young draenei mage was channeling an ice storm on it, presumably to put out the fire; she inclined her head at Jaina when she approached.

"Your ladyship," she said. 

"Did everyone get out in time?" Jaina inquired, biting her bottom lip, and the draenei made the diagonal head-jerk accompanied with a downwards flick of her tail that was her species' equivalent of a nod.

"Someone had smuggled a core hound in here and it panicked. The fire should be out soon. The King is near the Valley of Heroes with the shaman of the Earthen Ring."

Jaina inclined her head in gratitude and continued, and Yuui was swept into her wake. The weapon smith’s shop was mostly intact, but several bodies had been laid out in front of it with cloaks covering them. Some of the corpses were very small, and he couldn't see whether they were gnomes or children. A priestess dressed in exquisite armor was kneeling on the ground in front of an upturned tree, her hands cupping the face of an unconscious dwarf and her skin glowing as she worked her healing magics.

King Wrynn was a big man, filled with an almost... feral kind of energy. He was with a draenei woman at the gate that lead to the long Valley that marked Stormwind's entrance; over his head, Deathwing's son Nefarion's decaying skull swung gently from the chains that held it up, and Yuui shuddered discretely. Time and some very persistent scavengers had picked most of the ebon hide off the grisly war-trophy, and the head could have belonged to almost any dragon.

The draenei was the one who noticed them; she inclined her head briefly at Jaina rather than the bow an ordinary member of the alliance would have offered her. As a member of the Earthen Ring she was outside the usual etiquette boundaries, and she knew it. "Greetings, Lady Proudmoore," she said in a velvety voice. "Who is your companion?"

"This is Yuigos," Jaina said, and Yuui bowed his head to both the shaman and the human King. 

The King snorted. "The blue dragon you insisted I needed to tolerate? What use is he? Are the blues shaman, now?"

Yuui shook his head and tightened his grip on Jaina's staff. His leg was sore and he was very tired, but the tightness of his stomach and the building pressure in his skull refused to release him. "I am a magician and a scholar, King Wrynn, like most of the blue flight," he said, as politely as he could. "I have been fending off the elementals in your city to keep my friends safe."

"Several of your kind were _friends_ with mages, before they started kidnapping and coercing them into working for them," Wrynn snarled, and Yuui sighed. Wrynn's hatred of dragons in disguise was understandable, given what Nefarion's sister Onyxia had gotten up to before she had been discovered.

"This is not the time, if you will pardon me for saying so," the shaman interjected. "Greetings Yuigos, I am Earthcaller Nalaa."

She held out her long, four-fingered hand, and Yuui extended his own and shook it. Thus introduced, she continued briskly. "This earthquake was not natural. It was caused, as far as we shaman can tell, by a violent upheaval in the planes between worlds. In short, though a weak spot in this dimension, the plane of Earth briefly touched the mortal plane. We believe something passed over while they were in such close proximity to each other."

"Something? What thing?" Jaina asked, frowning, and the Earthcaller shrugged.

"We don't know," she said. "Something powerful. We don't think it was the Stonemother herself, but it was something very strong indeed, with a powerful affinity for Earth magics. It is likely that all the earthquakes we have been suffering recently were a result of this thing, whatever it is, struggling to get free."

Yuui felt that tension knotting up his stomach freeze, and his spine stiffened slowly. "Earthcaller," he said, very slowly and very carefully, annunciating each word with care, "Your people have been on our world of Azeroth for less than five years, is that so?"

She tilted her head curiously, her face tendrils waving and her tail swishing impatiently, and scraped a hoof along the ground. "Yes," she said, and with a bit of bite in her voice added, "I assure you I am no stranger to the control and manipulation of elemental magics during periods of stress. During Draenor's final days, I and my fellow shaman spent a great deal of time attempting to keep the earth itself knitted together. I can assure you these disruptions are not on the same scale as that."

Yuui shook his head, his heart pounding against his ribs, and looked up at the red sky, black clouds scudding across the horizon. Was it just fear creating the faint scent of burning? "No, not that. How much time have you spent around my kin?"

"Dragons? Not much. Our interests rarely coincide."

He drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes, and behind them he saw his flight spread out wingtip to wingtip, felt the shockwave of the lance of fire. He had been clipped by the blow, nothing more, and yet it had been sufficient to melt the flesh of his wing, sending him plummeting from the sky, and if Fai hadn't caught him he didn't know what would have happened. "You know that there are five colors, I assume," he said. "My kind, whose dominion is that of magic; the greens, who oversee the druidic spells of nature; the reds who are in charge of life, and the bronzes who watch over time and protect it from meddling?"

She nodded impatiently, but Jaina was the one who added, "And the black dragon flight. We remember, Yuigos, you do not have to lecture us just because we are mortal."

Yuui turned and glanced up at the sky. "I'm sorry," he said, absently. "You're right, I'm being condescending, it's just... the black dragons used to be in charge of the earth itself, Lady Proudmoore, and their aspect was known as the Earthwarder."

She got it. He heard her shocked, stifled gasp, and King Wrynn grunted a little. The Earthcaller's tail twisted in the manner he knew meant 'I don't understand,' in her kind's body language. "He's talking about Deathwing the destroyer," Wrynn said, and turned, signaling one of the knights working in the valley, who rode up. "General!"

"My liege?"

"Take the seventh legion to the civilians outside the gate and get them under cover. In the mines of Elwyn if you have to. Now!"

"Sir," the knight said dubiously, but saluted. Wrynn turned to Jaina, scowling. 

"I'm notifying the mages in the other cities," she said, her fingers working; reels of purple light spewed from their tips, curling into fantastical shapes before fading away. "And my friends in the neutral cities, I - oh!"

A scarlet sphere had formed in front of her, blinking violently. She cupped it in her palms, her lips parting. "It's from - it's from Fizzlewixx, one of the mages I know in Ironforge, I -"

"He's coming," said Yuui, because he could smell it on the air. Old magics and iron and fire, and the scent of the earth after the rain. He shrugged off his jacket and let it drop, limping over to one of the great statues that decorated the Valley of Honor, and climbed awkwardly onto its pedestal to try and see over the wall; Wrynn watched him with narrowed eyes. "He's coming from the north, I -"

"The dam, he broke the _dam_ ," Jaina said, the scarlet light in her palms sputtering in and out. "He's headed south through Blackrock near as they can tell, we don't -"

Wrynn drew his sword, the steel ringing as he slid them free of the scabbards, and leapt up onto the pedestal next to Yuui. "Fine," he said, ferociously. "If this is how I end, so be it, as long as my citizens are safe. They're just outside the gate."

Yuui nodded wearily and expended a little bit of his own magic. It sparkled and fizzed from his fingers, and if Arygos was watching then fuck him, Yuui had no time for these games. _The Betrayer approaches,_ he wrote. _Help._

He sent it to Wyrmrest, a scarlet ribbon that flew North unerringly over the wall, and said, "I'll distract him."

"You?" Wrynn demanded. "One dragon? I remember it took all four Aspects to chase him away during the second war, what can you do?"

"What I have to," Yuui said, and closed his eyes. "Stand back." He didn't check whether or not they obeyed, concentrating on coaxing out an old magic he hadn't touched for many, many long years, a magic that called to a shape he hadn't assumed for ten millennia.

His clothes changed with him, of course; they were formed out of magic just for that reason. His prosthetic was a physical thing carved of wood and rod and leather, and the straps snapped as his leg grew, and when it finished forming all that remained of the faithful device was a flattened heap of wood and bent metal support rods. Yuui would have felt worse about that, if he had thought he would survive this. He stretched all four legs out and his tail, and unfurled one long flawless wing of such delicate make it almost appeared translucent, only to keel to the side involuntarily at the lack of counter-balance. The stub of his other wing was black and cracked, the membrane burned clear away in a temperature so hot the remaining scraps of bone had melted into strange shapes. Yuui folded his wing to his back and snaked his head around to nose at the broken little remnant sadly; it was uglier than the stump of his leg was in his other shape.

"By the Light," Jaina said, sounding shocked. As well she might. He was the probably the first crippled dragon she'd seen. "Yuigos, how... how can you distract him with that... with _that_?"

"You emptied out the barracks, right?" he said. "If I can just get him to the park - I can reach the harbor, I bet he can't swim as well as I can."

He didn't believe that - or rather, he did, but he didn't think he'd make it to the park. Wrynn scowled at him but nodded, and he knew the man had arrived at roughly the same conclusion he had.

"You're not -" he started to say, and that was when Jaina hissed and pointed, and they all raised their heads to see, far away and very high up, the fire bloom with the black **v** in the centre, seemingly tiny but really so far away. Yuui's claws spasmed against the stone, his wing and ruff flaring in instinctive reaction to danger. _Make yourself bigger, scare them off._

_Oh, my wing._

"Get going," he said, and paused and then added, for politeness' sake, "Your majesty. Your citizens need you."

The King frowned but jerked his head and turned away, yanking his cloak around him, and Jaina swallowed and called, "Yuigos?"

"Just Yuui," he said, eyes fixed on that approaching v that was growing by the second, the dread scarlet flames that followed in its wake like carrion crows...

"If you want to distract him, I recommend _that_ ," and when he glanced at her she was pointing past him to the dangling dragonhead, swinging in the fiery breeze by its chains under the archway. Yuui lowered the edge of his wing, cocking his head to one side. Nefarion's jaws were parted, and most of his tongue lolled out between them; his hide might be gone but his horns were his father's...

"Thank you," he said quietly, and she bit her lip and nodded at him before heading after Varian, toward the people in the forest depending on them. 

He flipped his sole wing tightly to his back and carefully made his way over the archway beneath which Nefarion's head was suspended; his claws severed the chains easily, and he gathered several of them up in his jaws, letting the disgusting prize hang from his mouth. Maybe the sight of his prized son's severed skull would enrage Deathwing enough to let Jaina and Varian round up as many citizens as they could and get them out.

Deathwing flew in low and dangerous from the sea, coming within feet of crashing into the cathedral before giving one mighty flap of his wings and rising into the air, crashing onto the towers like a meteor. His feet burned, melting stone into indentations on the towers, and he reared back and drew in one great colossal breath, expending it in a mighty roar that shattered stone and sent debris whipping into the air. Yuui watched him do it quietly, and then dropped Nefarion's head onto the ground before the Destroyer with a jangle of chains.

"This trash belonged to you, I think," he said, allowing disgust to seep through his voice, and Neltharion's burning eyes crossed as he tried to focus on the small object down the length of his massive maw. His lower jaw was gone - destroyed in the explosion that had nearly wiped out Yuui's kin, or simply rotted like the massive dragon's body had - and something, some lackey or minion, had sculpted him a new one out of a sheet of viciously sharp angular metal. 

"You _dare_ ," the destroyer breathed, in a deep voice brassy and rumbling and dripping with threat, and Yuui raised a paw and batted Nefarion's decapitated head towards his father. Most of him wanted to run and hide; his scales were tingling like they were trying to drop off, and his instincts desperately urged him to try to buy his life by flattening himself to the ground to show he submitted. He supposed that would make evasion easier. Neltharion climbed off the gate, and he was even bigger than Yuui remembered, ten times Yuui's own size; he spread his massive wings, their undersides aglow with the fires of his own body. 

_I'm going to die,_ Yuui thought, winching his one wing in close. _I'm going to die here._

Well, that was to be expected. He should have died ten thousand years ago when Neltharion first turned. He shouldn't be here now; Fai had saved him and he had been living on borrowed time, and if he could just keep this monster distracted, if he could just buy _time_ , that would be an adequate repayment for his extra years.

"I remember you," Neltharion boomed, angling his head to rake Yuui over with one blazing, insane eye. "One of Malygos' twin whelps. How dare you confront me? You are _impure_!"

"Because someone had to," Yuui said. "Because I'm what you're worth."

Neltharion let out an explosive snarl at this and reared his head back, and Yuui shifted his weight onto his back legs. _Now,_ he thought, _while he monologues his madness,_ and when Neltharion's jaws parted he reared back and spat a concentrated blast of ice right into Deathwing's face. He took off so fast his claws scored marks in the stone cobbles of the Valley's walkway, and he ducked under one of the twisted aspect's wings and shot right past him, booking it as best he could. Behind him Deathwing shrieked in fury so loudly stone cracked.

He skidded through the tunnels of the gate house and pounded into the empty trade district as a concentrated blast of fire battered the stone behind him, scorching it cherry-red; the same fire he'd lost his wing to, only this time it was aimed directly at him and not his father. When Deathwing leaped back on top of the wall to find him again he heard the masonry crunch, and concentrated all his energy on bolting for safety. The park was on the other side of the stockades from here, if he could just -

"You think you can hide from _me_?" Deathwing roared. "You think you can run from _me_? I will teach you the meaning of suffering!"

Yuui leaped cleanly over the smashed ruins of the pawnshop and hauled himself on top of the curtain wall that ringed the trade district. His claws scrabbled desperately for contact, but he made it and cleared the canal to the mage district in a single leap, right as Deathwing smashed through the wall behind him.

The cobblestones of the mage district that had been his home for so many years were slicker and smoother than the others in the city, and he skidded ungracefully on them as he tried to turn; he lost his footing and crashed right through a trader's cart, sending bits of wood flying. He righted himself quickly, and then felt a fresh wave of terror pound through him at the noise like sailcloth unfurling; Deathwing was taking to the air. Taking his chances, he called upon the magic in his blood, and dredged up the last of his resources to blink between planes, materializing again twenty yards ahead as a blast of hyper charged fire rendered the spot where he had been into nothing but slag.

There was another canal between the mage district and the park, and that was where his 'blink' spell dumped him, with his back half wedged in the canal and his front legs splayed out across the sidewalk that ran along it on the park side. Desperately Yuui hauled himself up and thanked the Light and Malygos that the park was a newer district, and that instead of a stone curtain wall it was ringed by wooden houses. He sent a blast of arcane energy ahead of him that shattered a hole in the homes just wide enough for him to squeeze through.

The grass of the park grounds was much better under his claws than the slippery stone and brick elsewhere had been, and he put his head down, bulling his way desperately north-west toward the sea. Behind him Deathwing landed so hard the world shook, and he lost his footing at the impact, knocked sideways into a black of houses; wood splintered and glass shattered as he took out their walls.

"Pathetic," Deathwing sneered. "One crippled blue dragon thinks he can flee from _me_? There is no place on this earth that you would be safe, little fool. I know all the secret places of the earth!"

Yuui struggled to stand, dimly aware that one blast from Deathwing's breath and he would end here. His desperate flailing just succeeded in sending his back leg smashing through another wooden wall, and he couldn't draw it out. _Trapped_ , he thought, _trapped, I -_

The corrupted aspect snorted. "Behold," he said, and the world exploded, violent shaking knocking the breath out of Yuui; the ground beneath him slanted - an earthquake, a localized one, the walls around him were shattering and the ground was tilting and bricks and wood flew everywhere, he desperately tucked his only wing against him to try and keep it safe and -

Water, everywhere. He instinctively blinked his second eyelids across and shook his head, glancing around. The harbor, he was in the _harbor_ , Deathwing had destroyed the park and knocked him free... his paws hit the muddy bottom and he pushed upward, shooting for the surface, and when he reached it spread his wing out to serve as a flotation device. Deathwing was hovering awkwardly in place over the ruins of the park, which were black and twisted and shattered. Where grass had been now there was a scorched crater. As if sensing the movement in the water, the dragon turned and looked at him, and Yuui sucked in a breath and folded his wing, diving back under.

The water rippled around him and he flicked his wing, angling it try and help propel him onward as he struck out toward the deeper sea, and he was aware of the shadow falling over him as the aspect of death flew low over the water. He rolled onto his back to glare up out at the surface. Deathwing was hovering over the water, and it was hard to tell with the refraction but Yuui thought he looked even angrier than he had before. _Water's not so easy for you when you're made of magma,_ he thought, stretching his tail out to try and get some more surface area to propel himself forward. Deathwing's eyes narrowed and he drew in a breath; fire ignited at the back of his throat, and Yuui sent out a last desperate pulse of magic, calling upon the water itself, and cocooned himself in the block of ice right as Neltharion's fiery breath thundered forth.

It seemed to go on forever. He lost sight of the bigger dragon as the water began to boil, great roiling clouds of steam howling upward, and frantically tried to draw in coldness from further away to help his ice block hold as he felt the outer layers begin to melt. When he thought it was over - when the frenetic bubbling had slowed and the great fiery breath ceased - he dared suck in a breath only to realize Deathwing was doing the same.

 _I can't hold it,_ he thought, and beneath the shield closed both sets of his eyelids in frustration. _I can't hold it. I'm sorry, Fai._

It was hard to write a spell with the aspect of death doing his level best to charbroil you alive, but Yuui scribbled out the barest lines of a messenger spell in glowing blue there, under the water. After thinking about it for a half-second, he addressed it to Kurogane. _Don't let Fai do anything ridiculous,_ he wrote. It felt trite and too short, but his reserves had been drained before he began, and despite the ice the water was warming, and he had held out for as long as he could. Pathetic crippled dragon, indeed. The great dark shadow of Deathwing's wings blotted out the sun, and he stared up at his killer, willing up the courage to drop the ice block and surface for a quick death rather than boil slowly under the water.

Just before he did it, however, he became aware that there was something... wrong with Deathwing's silhouette above the waves. He seemed to have sprouted a smaller pair of wings from his shoulders, and that... that wasn't...

He never knew quite what happened. There was a flicker-flash of blue light that shorted out the hellish red of Deathwing's fire, and then the fire stopped and didn't resume; he blinked away the after images and saw the former aspect twist his head, blurred as he was through the steam.

And then Deathwing turned away.

He turned away, his great wings beating slowly through the air, his head twisting on its neck as he followed something out of Yuui's line of sight; and then he moved, no longer hovering over the water but chasing something else. Just in time, too; Yuui's ice block winked out, and he opened his jaws in a silent scream under the waves as the _heat_ of the water hit him. It was worse than being in a cook pot; the boiling, scalding water got in under his scales and stayed there, and he had to get _out_ , and he thrashed wildly screwing his eyes shut to keep them safe -

Something seized hold of him roughly and sunk into his shoulder, claws stabbing into flesh as they yanked him harshly along, and as he began to black out he could only hope it was friendly.

* * *

He couldn't have been out long, because when he opened his eyes, Deathwing was still hovering over the simmering waters of the harbor. The difference was, he was in combat with another dragon than Yuui, and one more familiar to Yuui than his own reflection.

Fai had always been a graceful flyer, and in this he was no exception. He spun and twisted through the air, spirally high and then folding his wings to whistle out from the sky and pelt Deathwing with a concentrated bomb of arcane energy before rocketing right past him. Yuui jerked his head up and winced as his body screamed at him.

"Would you hold still for five fucking minutes," said a gruff voice next to him, and he rolled one eye sideward to see Kurogane in his true shape, a thin band of black around his scarlet-scaled throat, as the red dragon lowered his head and breathed out a blast of healing flames. Yuui yelped; it felt like his scales were being seared off to reveal new ones underneath. It was healing, but it wasn't painless or pleasant.

"Fai," he said, and his claws twitched reflexively in - dirt? He had been towed to the beach?

"Yeah, I'll go help that scrawny idiot if you'll give me three titan-damned seconds," Kurogane snapped. "Shut up and hold still. I'm pretty fucking mad at you."

Yuui huffed out a slow breath, but couldn't tear his eyes away from the scene in front of him. Fai ducked and dived, dodged and danced, and for all Deathwing's size and power he couldn't land a hit on Fai. Fai wasn't doing much damage to him - his hide was too thick for that - but he was sure pissing Neltharion off.

"What were you thinking?" Kurogane demanded, and Yuui thudded his head onto the dirt of the beach and let his eyes droop half-way closed. "You some kind of idiot?"

"So you've often told me," Yuui said, and Kurogane growled low and thunderous. "Please go help Fai, Kurogane, I can't - I'm fine."

"Yeah, and you're going to get it in the neck later," Kurogane said, and climbed to his paws, stretching his wings out. Kurogane was one of the biggest dragons Yuui knew, almost twice his size and almost as big as Deathwing himself. "Your brother is going to _murder_ you."

Yuui said nothing, and after a second Kurogane hunched down and then leapt into the air, his wings flashing as he beat them, and he cannonballed into Deathwing with none of Fai's acrobatics or subtlety, claws digging in and teeth flashing as he tried to pry off some of the metal plates hammered all over Deathwing's body. The larger dragon roared and thrashed, but Kurogane was stubborn and Fai was still sending flashing, blinding bolts of magic at Deathwing's face and eyes.

Neltharion was too powerful for the two of them to hope to defeat straight-up, but with a combined assault, Yuui could see that they were getting to him. Kurogane tore vicious rents in his flesh and Yuui winced, hoping that the lava Deathwing was seemingly composed of didn't burn the red dragon's claws; if it did, Kurogane gave no sign. Fai hit a wing particularly hard, and the older dragon seemed to have had it.

"Enough!" he roared, snapping at Kurogane and missing as he dodged. Fai soared down at him in a steep dive, and this time instead of going for a minor pulse of arcane energy he hit Deathwing hard from behind, landing at the base of the larger dragon's neck with all the force he could muster. On a smaller dragon it would have been a killing blow; as it was, Deathwing _shrieked_ and shook himself wildly, managing to shake Kurogane free. " _Enough_! I will not indulge your pitiful struggles any longer!" he snarled.

"Yeah, I would run away if I were you," Kurogane growled, righting himself midair with strokes of his powerful wings. Fai back winged violently and began circuits again, looping Deathwing and picking up speed as he did so. "Wyrmrest was notified. The others are coming for you, Betrayer. Alex and Ysera and the others. You gonna stick around?"

Deathwing glared at him, his wings stroking fire into the air, and then he arched his neck. "I would," he snarled, spite and malice riding in his voice, "I would stay and exact _vengeance_ upon those who called themselves my sisters, but my masters forbid it! The hour of twilight will _fall_ , whelps, and when it does I shall have your broken bodies as _toys_!"

"Yeah yeah," Kurogane said. "Heard it before."

Neltharion narrowed his eyes and closed his jaws, and then grinned, cruelly. "Before I leave," he said, in a silky voice, "A parting gift."

Underneath Yuui's claws the ground began to quiver, and he stood up slowly, alarmed. With a roar Kurogane lunged at Deathwing, who simply twisted out of the way; a shimmer in the air marked a portal which he vanished though. Fai tackled Kurogane midair before he could vanish through it, and the two of them tumbled together through the sky, a flashing ball of scarlet and blue. Yuui stepped carefully away from the water's edge, casting a glance around the landscape; and suddenly there was a _noise_ and a bronze dragon was hovering perfectly neatly over the harbor where Deathwing had been just moments before, a cowled humanoid sitting atop her back. Fai and Kurogane disengaged shortly before they hit the water's surface, and Fai flew to Yuui's side, crouching over him protectively, while Kurogane flew up toward the bronze dragon. She greeted him with a happy little bugle.

"Hi," she said, cheerfully. "This is a mess, isn't it? Or was it? I never remember when I am. Oh! This is the incoming tidal wave, right? How fun!"

She glided into the docks, and the man on her back leaped off as soon as she touched down, pulling his cowl off. Yuui's nostrils flared as he got a good whiff of _orc_ over the scents of four different dragons and of _burning_. He had never personally seen the... former Warchief of the horde, but Thrall was recognizable anywhere. _He's not here as a member of the horde,_ he reminded himself. _He's here as a shaman_.

The King wasn't going to like this.

"Chronormu," said the bronze dragon to Kurogane happily as he followed her in to land. "Chromie for short. Nozdormu sent me from the future. Or is that 'will send me'? Of course, from my perspective it's in the past along my own timeline, so this is something that has happened, is happening, and will happen!"

"Great," Kurogane said, with a sigh. Yuui sympathized; talking to the bronze dragon flight was confusing on a good day. Thrall ignored his audience and walked to the edge of the receding water, pulling a small totem from his belt as he did so; he threw it down and held his hands out, palms-out as though trying to push the impeding tidal wave down.

"Nozdormu said to tell you that this is cheating, but it was a cheat that was going to happen all along, so it's okay within the timestream," Chromie continued earnestly, as Thrall begun to mutter under his breath. "Having Stormwind get wiped off the map _just_ now would mess up too many things that still need to happen, so I brought along someone to make sure it doesn't happen! Personally _I_ wanted to tell you that you will do great. Have done great. Either way!"

"Spirits of Earth and Water," Thrall murmured, shamanistic magic swirling around him, so strong Yuui could feel tingles down his spine, "Heed my call..."

"Are you alright?" Fai asked, nudging at his shoulder, and Yuui huffed out quietly. 

"I hurt," he said, simply, "But yes. I'll be alright, I think."

"Good," said Fai. "I'd hate for you to be ill when I _murder you_."

Yuui chuckled softly. "Kurogane said you were going to do that."

Fai snaked his head down and butted it hard against his shoulder. "For good reason," he admonished. "Yuui, what were you thinking?"

Yuui hesitated, and then said, in a small voice, "I wanted to protect the people. I... I like this place, Fai. Nobody cares about my leg."

"Your wing, you mean," Fai replied, sounding confused. "Yuui, I don't care about that, neither does Kuro-scarlet -"

"Would you knock it off with those fucking nicknames in front of... of people?" Kurogane snapped, landing heavily on Yuui's other side and gesturing at Chromie with a paw, and Fai snorted.

"Kuro-red, Kuro-rose, Kuro-pink-when-he-blushes -"

Kurogane snapped at him, but Fai danced away, his tongue lolling in a dragon-grin. "Idiot, stop getting side-tracked," he growled, and turned cool red eyes on Yuui. "Didn't you have something else you wanted to say?"

Yuui closed his eyes and nodded. His mates were large and solid on either side, and he hurt, and he let himself list slightly toward Fai. He should change back to human, he knew, to keep the sight of his damaged wing from them, but he was so tired... "I'm glad you came for me," he said, his tongue tangled in his mouth. "I thought I was going to die."

Fai nudged him, uncharacteristically serious. "I would never leave you to that fate," he said, fiercely. "Yuui, I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner. I was afraid... You took a serious risk."

"It worked, though," Kurogane pointed out. "Kudos, kid."

"Kuro-silly, you're the youngest of all three of us by nearly seven thousand years," Fai replied teasingly, and Kurogane showed him his teeth.

"I'm also apparently the least crazy," he said, and Yuui huffed out a bark of laughter.

Fai tucked his feet underneath himself, settling down on the harbor bank next to Yuui, and spread his wing, covering Yuui like a blanket. "It's okay now, though," he said. "You're alive. We'll get you back to Wyrmrest, and you can relax -"

"No," Yuui said, half-asleep.

Fai paused. "No?" he repeated, uncertainly.

"I'm staying here," Yuui said. "This is my _home_ , Fai. I lost my bakery, I'll... I'll have to oversee its reconstruction. And I need to find my humans and make sure they're okay, and see to the rebuilding..."

"Yuui..." Fai breathed, and with a grunt Kurogane settled on Yuui's other side, his long tail curling around and gently tangling itself together with Yuui's. The huge red dragon was a source of warm, and Yuui let his head loll towards him; Kurogane nudged at his shoulder.

"You're practically dead on your feet," he said. "Tell you what, I'll ask Tomoyo to get her elf... self down here and see to you while you rest.’Cause you are going to be resting."

"Kuro-silly, you can't-"

"He chose, idiot," Kurogane replied flatly. "Don't you want him to be happy? Isn't that what you've been worrying about as long as I've known you?"

Fai scowled. "Yes, I... Well, yes..."

"You were worried about me?" Yuui repeated, lifting his head from his paws. "You were worrying about me being happy?"

Fai blinked his blue eyes at him, surprised. "Yuui," he said, as though it were the most patently obvious thing in the world, "You are the most important person I _have_. Did... didn't you know that?"

Yuui couldn't answer that, his jaws working as he attempted to force out words, and Kurogane snorted and rolled his eyes, flopping his head down on the dirt so hard he made the water nearest them ripple. "Idiots, I'm surrounded by idiots," he said, under his breath, and Yuui and Fai both glared at him. He rolled his eye toward them and groaned. " _Identical_ idiots," he said, and Fai _hmphed_ and Yuui felt his jaws stretching in a grin.

"Thank you," he said, and he could hardly speak for the lump on his long throat. "Thank you both. For everything. You _make_ me happy."

Fai nudged him gently, and Kurogane _Tch_ ed and bumped his side with a wing, and Yuui realized that his happiness made _them_ happy in turn. Both of them. His mates.

He wasn't second best, and he wasn't unimportant, because he realized that as he loved Fai and Kurogane - equally, but separately - so they too loved him.

It was kind of like flying again.

* * *

Yuui was putting out a pan of croissants when the young woman strode into the bakery, her hands on her hips as she cast a thoughtful glance around its interior. Her long black hair fell in natural curls around her face, and she had a hard look to her eyes. 

"Can I help you?" he asked politely.

"Maybe," she said, the Gilnean brogue thick on her tongue. It was still taking Yuui some time to get used to it; since the Gilnean wall had collapsed and the former King Greymane had taken up residence in the palace there were many more of them around, and not all of them carried the curse of the worgen transformation. "I'm looking for a Flowright?"

"That's me," Yuui said. "What are you after?"

"I'm looking to buy thirty-eight rocket launchers, sixty-five tons of heavy-to-medium grade explosives, and an arcanite hair trigger," she said, unrolling some schematics from her belt, and Yuui lifted his eyebrows. "And a fel iron toolbox."

"Ah," he said. "I think you want my twin. Next door over, _Flowright engineering supplies._ "

"Bloody hell, that's confusing," she said, scowling. She glanced down at the schematics in her hand. "Wait, how can you live with all the explosions right next door to this place? Doesn't it ruin the ambiance?"

"Soundproofing," Yuui said, grinning. "What's your name?"

"Crowley," she said, holding out a confident hand. "Lorna, to my friends. I'm Gilnean but I haven't been bitten by the worgen yet. You're a dragon, aren't you? I heard about you fellows. Didn't you save this place from Deathwing back during the Shattering?"

Yuui shrugged as he shook it. "I didn't do much," he said. "My twin - that's the one who runs the engineering store - and our partner did most of the work."

"That would be the red?" she asked, and he nodded. "Hmm, I've heard about him, too. Where is he?"

Yuui smiled, waving his oven mitt through the steam wafting off the croissants. "I think he's in the Firelands right now, facing down Ragnaros himself," he said. "He should be back soon."

Kurogane had insisted on it, in fact, less out of concern for Yuui and more out of a half-serious worry Fai would blow himself up with his newfound love of explosives. 

"So, three dragons, a baker, a tinkerer, and an adventurer?" Lorna tilted her head quizzically. "Must be one hell of an odd partnership."

"It works," Yuui said, grinning. "Better than you'd think." 

Well, except for the time Fai had brought honest to god _dynamite_ into bed with him. Kurogane and he had almost gone through the roof - though not literally, the idiot had been smart enough to disarm part of the mechanism. 

("I wanted to develop a new EZ-Thro brand," he'd said when Kurogane had almost pitched him out the window; "The old one is too complicated and doesn't pack a powerful enough punch.")

Lorna was smiling at him oddly. "I'll have to take your word for it," she said. "What's your name again? Are you a strasz, or a gos, or what?"

"Yuui," he said. He smiled, happy with that answer. "I'm just Yuui."

* * *

_-fin_

And an omake, courtesy of Mikkeneko!

Yuui and Jaina leaned out of the way as an adventurer on a gigantic striped saber came rocketing past them, but at the last moment Yuui changed his mind and reached out to drag the passing night elf to a halt.

"You -- warrior!" he shouted above the tumult, making a guess based on the sheer number of spikes attached to the elf's plate armor. "Stormwind is under attack! A lot of people are trapped under collapsed buildings while the elementals swarm. The apprentice mages have evacuation portals ready. Go the mage district, kill any elementals you encounter and rescue as many civilians as you can!"

"Yes, sir!" the warrior said, saluting him smartly. Instead of riding off, however, he stood there looking at Yuui with an expectant expression. "How many?"

"How many what?"

"How many civilians do you want me to save?"

Yuui stared at the elf incredulously. "Are you blind, man?!" he exclaimed. "The city is coming down around our ears! The people of Stormwind have _no_ defenses and they are going to _die_ if you don't help them. Save as many as you can find!"

"Yes, but..." The adventurer's expression went perplexed. "How many is that?"

Yuui took a deep breath and reined in his temper, reminding himself that this sellsword had probably taken more blows to the head in his career than Yuui had made cupcakes. Before he could speak again, however, Lady Proudmoore cut in from the side. "Ten, sir warrior."

"Ten!" The confusion on the adventurer's face cleared up, and he saluted them smartly before wheeling his mount away. "Right you are, sir!"

"Just ten?" Yuui demanded, out of breath, as they galloped towards the cathedral.

"Don't worry," Jaina Proudmoore assured him. "When he comes back, I'll tell him it's repeatable."

**Author's Note:**

> Written November 2011, posted May 2019 as part of a wider project consolidating my fic on one website. If you made it this far, hope you enjoyed!


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